Plantations of Sint Eustatius

The plantations of Sint Eustatius (Dutch Caribbean) were primarily set up in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by European settlers.

[1] Around 1689, many plantation owners moved away due to repeated destruction and looting during takeovers by other colonial powers, often to nearby Saint Thomas.

Sint Eustatius did not develop into a full plantation economy as in Suriname, for example, due to the low annual rainfall.

[4] Much archival material, from Sint Eustatius from the seventeenth and eighteenth century, has been lost due to hurricanes and violent takeovers by the French and English.

From historical maps of Sint Eustatius, information can be derived about the names of the plantations, the division of ownership, and the size of possessions.

Excavations have taken place on former plantations Golden Rock, Godet, Guyeau, Fair Play, Schottenhoek, Steward and Pleasures and are mostly performed by the St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research (SECAR).

The first enslaved Africans of the transatlantic slave trade were brought to Sint Eustatius in the 1640s, and then worked on the increasingly successful tobacco plantations.

[7] Abraham Heyliger and William Moore were among the richest settlers with an abundance of land and the most numbers of enslaved workers owned.